Developer comments

Developer comments

A lot of the information on this wiki comes from comments made by the developers. Sometimes the developers make great comments that contain useful information, but doesn't exactly fit into the wiki (yet). If you have a great developer comment that deserves to be read, but doesn't really fit here, then please add it here!

Contents

Plans for combating cheaters and hackers

“I’d be a damn liar if I told you we were going to make sure it never happened ever. The fact is, there’s a segment of the audience that’s GOING to try to exploit the system and that IS going to figure out how to turn our game against us. It’s just a 100% certainty. So what I will promise is that we’re going to be a damn sight more reactive to this stuff than others have been in the past. Star Citizen is being designed so that we can update it quickly rather than rebalancing with big patches every six months. What’s more, we’re building the game WE want to play…and if someone has figured out how to mess it up, you can believe me we’re going right in and closing that loophole as fast as we can.”[1]

-- Ben Lesnick, responding to the question 'What are your plans for combating cheaters and hackers?'

NPCs as crew members

“Yes [to] NPCs as crew members. You'll see a guy in the extra seat [in the Constellation], rather than just a computer.”

“There are going to be NPCs that are a little smarter than others, just like people. You'll be able to hire better pilots, there are going to be ratings. It will cost you more if you want to have an ace NPC character. Just like us, the reputation system is going to be global. NPCs will be on that, too.”

-- Ben Lesnick and Eric Peterson, responding to the question 'Will we be able to hire NPCs as crew members, or will there just be onboard AI for space ships?'[2]

Everyone starting with an Aurora

“When you enter the world of Star Citizen, either after you've completed Squadron 42, or if you just skip the Squadron 42 adventure by mustering out before basic training, you'll start with the ship(s) that you've pledged for, along with the credits that came with your game package. The Aurora is definitely not a free starter ship, its just the one that comes with the lower cost tiers. That doesn't mean its a bad ship by the way - it is fairly flexible and pretty robust - just not flashy and cant carry as many weapons and upgrades as some of the larger more expensive ships.”

-- Chris Roberts, responding to a comment about everyone starting with an Aurora[3]

Various questions on capital ships

“Capital ships are not going to be impossible to own. They're going to take a lot of work and in many cases teamwork to earn... but they aren't going to be something no one has. Now we haven't balanced anything yet, so exactly what a corvette or a destroyer will ultimately cost isn't known (at least I can't promise it now!)... but at the end of the day, we aren't going to build a game that lets you fly capital ships and then make it so you never get to, you can count on that.”

“I can give you my thoughts on [capital ships], with the proviso that nothing is official yet!”

“I think capital ships, especially lighter capital ships, shouldn't be particularly rare. They should be expensive to purchase or hard to capture in battle... but they should be readily available rather than rare prizes like the Bengals. As long as someone has (X amount of credits) then they should always be able to buy a corvette.”

“They need to be hard to get, though. They're the "next phase" of the game. Imagine Star Citizen like Privateer at its core, with broader concepts naturally expanding from the design in all directions. So where Privateer stops short of giving you a bigger ship you can buy late in the game when you've earned lots of money, we open up a new fold of gameplay. (And the same for other dynamics - exploration has a bigger endgame, mercantile stuff does with the factories and so on.)”

“I don't think they should be available to players at first... they're something you earn through hard work. They should be THERE, a shining (x-number-of-credits) prize that you're earning money for... but they should be out of reach of a starting player on his first day in the game.”

“As for their place in the game, it should be several fold. On one basic level, they're whatever you've chosen for a particular role writ large. So pirates will want a capital ship for raiding, merchants will want one as a more armored transport, explorers will want one because it expands their range a great deal. But also you have another gameplay level that unfolds once people start to gether capital ships... and that's capship versus capship combat, which will have a different flavor from normal dogfights. (They're also a BIG collaborative piece... so capships will be guild homes and something like a much larger version of that stupid Halo car where you have to work together to make them work correctly.)”

-- Ben Lesnick, responding to various questions on capital ships[4][5]

What's covered by Lifetime Insurance

“Basic equipment is provided with your initial ship and that would be covered with the replacement. You’re never going to be left in a position where you can’t do anything because you just have the ship… so you’re going to get an engine and a laser and a shield generator and a basic software suite. If you’re familiar with Privateer, think of how your initial Tarsus was outfitted. (And part of the strategy there was knowing you could sell some of that immediately to buy a nicer gun!)”

“You can store equipment in your hangar or you can sell it. It will take up space – you’ll see it piling up on the screen.”

“You can sell the basic items from your LTI ship, but I believe the balance will be that they’re just about worthless.”

“You can move parts from one ship to another, although they’ll need to fit with that particular ship. Parts will not be duplicated. :)”

Advanced input device support

“Chris [Roberts] really likes the idea of secondary (physical) displays as displays and/or controllers, so we are actively investigating this potential feature and talking to others about it (WiDi, library authors).”

-- Jason Spangler, responding to a request for advanced input device support in the game[7]

Cutlass availability post Kickstarter campaign; Some limited ships may be offered again

“The Cutlass was never meant to be a limited edition ship. The only “limited” ships were ones with a finite amount to sell, like the Vanduul fighter and the Idris Corvette.”

“If you got this impression it was a mistake, perhaps because everything was so crazy the last few days of the campaign and so many ships were announced all together but limited refers to the number in service / available for the sales. All other ships are player purchasable ships in game and occasionally we may bring some back for purchase during certain events. In the case of the Cutlass we kept the ship available after the campaign ended because so many people wanted to flirt with the grayer side of the law and the Cutlass is really the pirate ship. We didn’t want to disadvantage all the potential pirates out there so we thought it would be good to keep as one of the permanent ship options.”

-- Chris Roberts, responding to a comment as to why the Drake Cutlass is still available for pledgers after the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign ended[8]

Mounting torpedoes on non-bombers; Repairing other ships in mid-space

“You'll be able to repair your ship or others. (But maybe not FULLY. If you remember Privateer, you couldn't repair particular systems like armor or external guns... or systems that were completely blasted.)”

-- Ben Lesnick, responding to the possibility of mounting torpedoes on non-bomber/non-capital ships, and if we will be able to make repairs on ships in mid-space[9]

New RSI website availability time

“The new site will go up concurrently with the end of the livestream. The livestream will be a countdown to the release of the new site and all of its super shiny features.”

-- Chad Moore, responding to a request of when the new website will be available[10]

Guild hangars

“Guild hangars are planned, where you and your guildies could store your ships in the same hangar, but any functionality as it relates to ownership or captain's rights has yet to be decided and fleshed out.”

TrackIR support

Languages available at release

“Current operating plan is for EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish) with the possibility of Russian for the initial release.”

-- Travis Day, responding to the question of which languages will be part of the initial release[14]

How Squadron 42 relates to the Persistent Universe

“SQ42 introduces players to the universe of Star Citizen. If players want to skip that introduction and dive straight into the PU then they can but SQ42 is going to be the place to learn about how the Universe of Star Citizen works. As an introduction it doesn't make sense to be able to go back to play it again and have that give rewards because players would be able to just replay over and over to buff up their characters and we want people to go and explore the PU to do that so, while we'll let you replay it for fun, the only time it will give you rewards is when you play it as an introduction to your Star Citizen experience. [...] Sufficed to say how you play SQ42 will affect your circumstances when you enter the PU in all sorts of interesting ways. ;)”

-- Ben Sharples, responding to the question of why only the character's first play-through of Squadron 42 will affect their start in the Persistent Universe.[15]

Capital ship design evolution

“Hi guys and gals. Mike Northeast here from Foundry 42.”

“[...] We have learned an incredible amount from the production of the Idris. When it was first created Foundry 42 didn't even exist yet so, when we were given the task of making it ready for SQ42, it was already a little down the production line. Naturally we hit some snags but I believe we did a pretty decent job in that situation and remember - the modifications in JP are still WIP; there might even still be some minor changes here and there based on the feedback you give. This is the one of the great things about the transparency we have with our fans - whether you believe it or not, we *listen* to what you have to say and adapt our designs based on your feedback. Hey, that's why I'm here on a Sunday scouring the forums :)”

“The Panther and Javelin are being produced much more modular fashion in that the talented designers here whitebox out the interior of the ship based on a loose hull shape provided by the artist. The designer then feeds back to the artist and vice versa. This ongoing collaboration (and an extensive review procedure) minimizes the issues that we have seen with the Idris and ensures that the interior is playable and exterior is beautiful.”

-- Mike Northeast, detailing how the ship building pipeline has evolved.[16]

Persistent universe asset packs for private servers

“The persistent universe is a slightly different beast than what you will be able to do on your private server, just because the persistent universe is actually many, many, many servers all linked together. It's just what you need to do to handle the large amount of players we already have, let alone the amount of players we intend to have, and so to a certain level the ability for us to sort of keep the private servers in sync with what's we're doing on the persistent world- it's not like we just hit a button and it's on everywhere. So, probably the way I would think it is: New stuff, we roll out a new ship or whatever, we make it available in the persistent universe and then later on it potentially can be available in the sort of an offline [fashion]; people would get, like, an asset pack or something they can probably pick and choose from, but it's not necessarily going to be at the same frequency or level that it's going to happen in the persistent universe.”[17]

--Chris Roberts, responding to the question 'Will updates to the Persistent Universe be rolled out to private servers on a modular basis? Can we cherry pick the updates we want and ignore those we don't?'

Large ship modularity plans

“We're talking about having a more thought-out, sort of modular system you can have on some of the bigger ships to switch out [the points] and parts of it. That's actually something that we touch on in the Letter [from the Chairman] today. But we're still in the process of sort of [...] designing the sort of rules and mechanics for that. That's likely to be the stretch goal beyond the one that we have now, which we'll sort of share with detail [down the road or so]. [...] But as to the [question] the idea would be: In the bigger ships you can do a certain level of, like, customization; Okay, switch this cargo thing out for living quarters [and like that].”[18]

-- Chris Roberts, providing more detail after being asked a question about the cost of Retaliator bomb bay modules

Missile purchase clarification

“Just to clarify about missiles. Buying a missile effectively gives you a "pass" to those missiles. So they aren't use once and consumed. The reason we give you 10 missiles is so that on the holotable you have 10 missiles which will allow you to fill out even the largest implemented missile racks with your recently purchased missiles.

The missiles are not consumed after being used though! Just because missiles are treated like ammunition of the missile rack so we needed to give purchasers 10 in order to avoid a situation where someone bought a missile and could only equip 1. :)”[19]